striking gold in the salt mine

It's a deeply rainy weekend, kicking off what appears to be a solid week of the wet stuff coming up, if my phone can be trusted. I've turned a corner, though, and since Imbolc, and a luminous ritual with my Druid group, I've been fairly on the up-and-up. Even the flu, which came this past Sunday, and stayed til yesterday, hasn't really gotten me down. Oh, I took 3 days off to work, and a lot of Tamiflu and tea, but I'm feeling better. Spring, which always seems to pop up in GA in February, is working its magic.

I was struck with a thought about my work this morning. We are deep into ACCESS testing at school. ACCESS is the annual test of English language proficiency, that most of our students take. It pulls me out of my teaching job for 5 weeks, to give group written tests, online tests, and 1:1 speaking tests. Now I don't really like tests, and think we give far too many in our current educational culture. ACCESS is mostly performance-based, though, and isn't ridiculously rigorous, as tests go. I don't hate it, and it does give the examiner a good idea of what the ELL student can actually do, in English. What I realized, though, is that by being involved in testing children, I get to avoid the regular weekly meetings at school where administrators talk about testing. Because the testing schedule runs all day, and doesn't follow the rest of the staff schedule. Win-fucking-win!!!! ACCESS can go on all year, as far as I'm concerned...the entire month of February is simply going to work, testing children, working after hours on my various extra-curricular projects and afterschool club, then coming home to enjoy home life. No lesson planning, no collaborative, data-centric meetings of any kind eating up my nonexistent planning time. It's going a long way to ensure my enjoyment of my job, right now.

Thing is, I really still enjoy teaching, and like the kids, the families, and my colleagues. But our school has turned into a Georgia Milestones-CCRPI-obsessed, numbercrunching score-mill, and our planning periods have been hijacked by time with administrators and coaches pushing one or another initiative down our already choking throats. It has raised everyone's stress level, and to be honest, it's happening in every school in the district, so I can't even escape with a transfer. The one good thing (and really, finding a silver lining in this stormcloud is as a stretch) about it all is that it has caused me to move my retirement plans up a lot. I am planning 3 more years in the field. Slightly more than a Peace Corps assignment, right? I'm just about ready to start counting the days. I never thought it'd come to this. And really, if I weren't so deep into it, I'd just leave, but I do like the money, the benefits, and the dubious retirement potential.

But I am all about finding me some joy right now, and that includes ways to transcend the drudgery.

I have also just registered for 2 pleasurable escapes, thus spending all my disposable income for this month. One is my spinning guild's retreat, to be held in March, in a big rambling house not too far out of Atlanta. The other is the 2nd annual Mystic South conference, coming up in July. Both of these events are serious good times, and feed my soul. I'm hoping a friend from up DC way will come down and stay with me for Mystic South again. A couple of facebook messages, and yes, she confirms it.

And now, my dears, I am leaving this cozy chair for a bit of spinning and Olympics gawking.

Once more into the breach!

It's mid-January. The light, promised at Solstice, has finally started to creep back in. Days incrementally longer, and the deep freeze of last week has finally broken - today's high is 65F. About damn time, too, as I was getting tired of being cold. Our house is not well-insulated, and we spent all last week swaddled in layers of wool, polar fleece, and thermal underwear. Most, if not all of our freak 2 inch snow is finally gone.

I was so cold, from the deep freeze, that I actually finished a pair of knitted gloves, that had been on the needles for years - years! They worked out well, and I'm now over my glove-knitting hump. I will make more! The pattern is Ringwood on Ravelry, and it's a free pattern. Yarn is my handspun, a Knitty n' Color superwash merino from stash. Now it's on to finish my Slytherin socks, and the Iba sweater, which would have also been most welcome in last week's 16-degree temperatures.

I'm thinking, seriously, this time, about taking a long break from social media. It occurred to me at church today, during a talk on The Transcendentalists, how much senseless noise I get in my life, from Facebook and to a somewhat lesser degree, Instagram. The Transcendentalists got inside their own heads by spending time in quiet, in the woods, in solitary industry, in reading, or in stimulating conversations with like-minded friends.

Epiphany! 

Oh I love keeping up with my friends, but I'm sick of the rabbit holes, and am frankly stunned by the hours and energy whiled away online that I could be using to do something or nothing else. I'd kinda been planning a break at Lent, but am thinking to make it earlier. Trouble is, I do use social media to calendar things like our D&D games, and various pagan activities. So I can't get completely free of it, but I can damn sure reduce it. I logged out of both Fb and Instagram, and removed the apps from my phone as a start. I think the hard thing will be to break the habit of checking the feeds - gonna carry around some knitting with me for awhile, and just leave my phone on the charger at work, as I go to my classes, so I'm not automatically reaching for it. Yes, I text my spouse, sister, and friends at work, but it's not like I have to be available all the time for this activity. So, new venture, to try and make some space in my life.

Right now, it's time to prep some food for dinner and tomorrow's breakfast; Asian coleslaw, shoyu eggs, and prepack my lunch. Then a yoga video (kind reader are you familiar with Adrienne?) and maybe a little bit of spinning.

Irma the Bully: Hurricane Snow Days

In case you haven’t heard, there’s been a new girl in town the past few days, and she’s a bully. That’s right, Hurricane Irma. We pronounce her name “ear-ma” as we have a friend of the same name. She rolled into Atlanta yesterday, quite early in the morning, and proceeded to darken our skies, dump some rain, blow hard, and then, as we thought she wasn’t that big of a deal (hey, man, we didn’t even lose power!) she took out a tree in the yard. A seemingly healthy poplar, not even a tree we were stressed about.

Have you ever seen a tree fall? I happened to be glancing out into the backyard when it happened. It happens at the roots first; they just lifted up out of the ground, as I stared in shock. Slowly, they erupt, as the trunk leans, and then gravity takes over, and the weight of the thing makes it fall faster, til the resounding thump jars you back into reality. Our fence crackled like it was made of toothpicks, and everything shifted a little. I was shocked and saddened, but the rain was falling too hard to go out and check it out. Besides, I was a little scared of more trees coming down on me.

Today, I went out and checked it out. So many trees down in Atlanta right now that this one is not a priority, so we won’t even call a tree removal service yet…they’ll laugh at us. Tree removal, fill dirt added, topsoil, fence repair. It will be interesting to see how our shade profile changes with the loss of yet another poplar. Some shade plants were spared; I will go into the area and grab them; a pretty yellow-green Hosta, and some beloved wild ginger plants. I’m already considering the landscaping possibilities, though this is a bit down the line.

Beyond that, I knitted through the hurricane. I cast on for Bonnie Marie Burns’ “Iba” sweater (link) and got through the neckband, and then did a bunch on the raglan line, only to realize that I was screwing up the edging and central back rib pattern, and so I ripped it back to the neckline. Gah…metaphor for my life. One step up, two steps back.

Today, we are off again, for more rain, and diminishing winds. I will write my long-postponed lesson plans, and read 2 chapters for the Master Gardener class. I could use another day, but I suspect DeKalb will pull itself together…we really didn’t get hit that badly.

I feel the intense need for a stash fluff, as I have seen a moth in the office. Inspection of the yarn and fiber reveal no presence of moths, but I am paranoid. I have some cedar oil, and will oil down the inner part of the cedar chest where the fiber stays, and re-inspect everything. Most likely (I keep telling myself) it’s a stray ball of yarn or bit of fluff that has found its way under the couch or chair that’s growing moths. Still, my terror rises.

-->

9/12/17

so it begins...in which i make resolutions about work-life balance

School, at least for teachers, started last week. Kids come in tomorrow. Given that we had a packed schedule full of meetings, registration, and no occupancy permits for trailers til Friday, I don't think the first week went half bad. A building full of new staff, including 10 new teachers, so there's the potential for fresh happy attitudes.

I am already hearing the rumbling of job dissatisfaction and griping about admin, via social media, though, so I'm remembering that this is the year that I'm going to re-set my boundaries...

1.  Ground, shield, and center before my feet touch the pavement of the school property. Do NOT tap into the crazy. I can't be effective in my work when I'm sucking up my colleague's complaints, my administrator's pendulum-like energy, and the simmering vibrations of 1000 children. Yes, all this sounds woo-woo. But I just do better by taking a moment.

2.  Make mornings less frantic. Pre-cook breakfasts for the week in the form of baked oatmeal, shoyu eggs, grabbable fruit. Pack lunch the night before. Have my clothes ironed, and ready to wear. I allow myself 45 minutes to actually prepare myself, and I don't want to spend 15 of that running around trying to assemble food, and deciding what to wear.

3.  Be outside as much as possible. There is no need to spend traveling time using the halls on campus. Outside time makes me happy. Eat lunch on the porch of the trailer if the weather is at all pleasant. Open doors and windows.

4.  Purge, purge, purge. My trailer and my office are jam-packed with teaching materials that I no longer use. Re-home this shit. I was supposed to do that last year, but last year was a battle of motivation and moods even to figure out what my job was, as a writing teacher, so this year, I will start anew with the shedding years of teacherhoarding. I'm hauling the stuff to the thrift stores, too, not dithering around waiting for coworkers to decide whether or not they may need it. I will set up a box, labeled "OUT" and when it's full (or easily carry-able by me up to my car) I will drive by the donation center en route home.

5.  4:00 is go-time. Gym time, walk time, yoga time. Last year, I worked so late, getting so little done, spinning my wheels, and then I'd go home exhausted and depressed. This year, I'm just going home. I am under no illusions that I can bail every day at 3, but I CAN make a cup of tea and work til 4 and call that my late days. By setting 4 as my exercise time, I'll be more likely to get out. I may need to stay later for Nature Club and school gardening, but since that's my pet project, that's the exception.

6.  Initiate Project Z. Get some sleep. Screens off by 8pm, soothing music, chamomile tea, clean bedroom, melatonin, whatever it takes to get some Z's.

7.  Pace myself. Stay on top of lesson plans, grading, deadlines. This is so very not in my wheelhouse, but I'm going to try, if for no other reason than to save my Sundays from being hysterical spinning.

There. I've put it down there. I want to reassess how this is working, after a few weeks, not because I want to scale back any of it, but because I need to recommit to it.

mast year

It's that hot, humid, rainy, intense part of the summer, where I find myself not really wanting to go outside, and then coating myself with mosquito repellant, pushing out there, and being glad I did. Still, it takes effort. We live at the confluence of 2 creeks, slow-moving Georgia streams, and in some thick kudzu-bounded woods. Muggy and mosquitos are our 2 Ms, down here.

From the looks of it, it is going to be a mast year; acorns are already ripening and falling, and for the first time I can remember, in the 8 years we've lived here, our beech tree is loaded down with beech nuts.

I've not tasted them; they are tiny, and seem mostly shell, under the prickly coating. I assume they are edible, assume the local Creek people ate them, in the past. 

While I find a mast year exciting, in the sheer number and variety of acorns underfoot, it does seem to be associated with increases in tick-borne illnesses. Any increase in rodents around here is sobering, as we live in a house with a crawlspace that's adjacent to the basement, and rats sometimes attempt to set up shop in our living space. Fortunately, I am not squeamish about the snappy trap, and thus am able to keep the little bastards at bay. 

Today is hot and still already, at 7:30am. I am going to try to maintain a steady pace of housework and practical activity today, as I have to be back at work on Monday. It is past the time when I should be taking the river cure, or savoring the "last ice cream" or the "last walk in the woods" or somesuch. I am just trying to have a little bit of grip on my sanity for the next few weeks...

snapshot of a summer

And it has gone by so dang fast...I have 8 weeks off each summer, and somehow, this one seemed shorter than previous ones. My usual plan is to drive to VA for 2 weeks, visit family and friends, then come home, get some kind of plane ticket out of the country for a couple more weeks, and then come home, collapse in exhaustion, til it's time for the back to school panic.

I decided to be smarter, this year, and besides, we're saving money for a trip to Spain next spring. I took my VA road trip, and then came home and lived my life in a very low-key, locally based way. I went to bed each night at 10pm. I got up each day at a reasonable hour. I ate most of my meals at home, and fought depression by staying busy, swimming, and not quitting the St. John's Wort. For the most part, I stopped drinking. I nursed my Plantar Fascitis, which repaid my loving care by feeling a teeny bit better. I broke up with my true love, sugar. We still aren't speaking much. I lost 5 pounds, and cleaned out (and am still cleaning) my office. I am more or less even keel.

Here are some highlighty pix of the good times at home...

Paddling on Stone Mountain Lake on the Glorious Fourth. Maybe the hottest, most tired I've been all summer. I was seriously sad, at this point, and about to bonk. I still had a long paddle to the landing. 

A Zinnia in the Doraville Unity garden. Wonder what happened to its other petals? 

Red kayak, a big part of my happy little staycation. Taken in a lake that's very close to our house. 

I went to the Mystic South Conference this weekend. Here is a workshop I attended: Empathic Self Defense. Pretty interesting talk, on ways not to let other people's crazy energy glom onto oneself. I need it for work, I think, as well as for certain sectors of my non-immediate family. 

Inspired by Mystic South, I did some landscaping and made a little Faerie space, complete with a tree stump altar and a guardian. 

Now summer is damn near gone. I've got a pile of books on my nightstand to read, still, it's in Georgia's ferocious humid heat season, now, and I'm turning my energy toward finding my school year rhythms. 

Untangling

Unfuck Your Habitat is my new favorite site...encouraging as I try to unfuck my own surroundings. I like that it breaks daily tasks down to elements like "unfuck your morning" which has you laying out clothes and putting your keys in an obvious place. 

My sis is coming into town for a visit, and the weekend is unbelievably slammed, not my favorite thing, but I couldn't reschedule some of it. sigh.